LambWeston Meijer chooses IMOTIONS

Lamb Weston/Meijer has existed as a joint venture between ConAgra Foods Lamb Weston (USA) and Meijer Frozen Foods (NL) since 1994. The company makes deep-frozen potato products and dried potato flakes. These products are sold under the brand Lamb Weston in more than 100 countries throughout the world. Lamb Weston/Meijer is active in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). With a current production capacity of 700,000 tons of potato products on an annual basis, Lamb Weston/Meijer offers work to more than 1,200 employees. There are five factories in Europe. The main office is in Kruiningen and in 2014 a marketing and sales office was set up in Breda.

Video conferencing at Lamb Weston/Meijer

There are many employees throughout the whole EMEA. Manager IT Service Jolanda van de Linde: “To be able work together efficiently, we used a number of Polycom systems. This is excellent equipment, but in practice someone from IT always had to come to get it to work.

At a certain point, we transferred to Microsoft Office 365 in the Cloud and the use of Skype for Companies (Lync). This works well for 1-to-1 communication but not for larger groups. We wanted to link our existing systems with Lync to thus allow groups to take part. We spoke to several companies but not a single one could realize this for us. Finally, I saw a film clip of the Videobutler and contacted IMOTIONS.”

The choice for IMOTIONS

Jolanda van de Linde: “When it appeared that IMOTIONS could take on this challenge, an agreement also had to be reached about the budget required. We had an important meeting in a hotel where no video conferencing facilities were available. We challenged IMOTIONS and they took up the gauntlet: they came to the hotel with a complete system.

That system worked really well, only the IT department of the hotel could not realize the connection. Finally, an employee of IMOTIONS solved the problem. Even during the meeting, we already heard people saying that they also wanted to have this in our office in Breda and we teamed up with IMOTIONS.”

For this location, IMOTIONS supplied new Cisco equipment. The existing systems could be reused and migrated to the IMOTIONS service. The connection between the various offices in EMEA and America takes place via the IMOTIONS network.

Experiences with IMOTIONS

Jolanda van de Linde: “Video conferencing works very simply with IMOTIONS. You book a meeting with the locations that you need plus the Videobutler. The Videobutler sets up the meeting and it just works. The Videobutlers can also be seen on the screen, which comes across as very professional.

The people from IMOTIONS are very committed. I have the feeling that they find it even more important than we do that a meeting goes well and nothing goes wrong. When you send an email, you receive a quick response and they are very flexible. Due to the different time zones, we also have regular consultations with Lamb Weston US during the evening hours; this is no problem at all for the Videobutlers. IMOTIONS organizes everything that they promise to.”

The advantages of video conferencing

Jolanda van de Linde: “Video conferencing with IMOTIONS offers a number of considerable advantages for Lamb Weston/Meijer. To begin with, we now work much more efficiently and sustainably: because less travelling is required, we are less of a burden to the environment.

It also removes the stress that is characteristic of video conferencing. Planning a meeting with several people is already often difficult, then the technology must not be against you. Furthermore, it is simple to use. Our employees are real fans because they can organize it themselves without needing help from IT.
For us as an IT department, it also offers advantages. Since IMOTIONS operates the video conferencing, the users are no longer involved with the systems. And if you do not touch them, nothing can go wrong either. As an IT department, you do many things that are invisible to the organization. For us it is therefore really good to hear that the users are so pleased with it.”